
Class. 
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INITIATE EMANCIPATION. 



SPEECH 






tA' 



HON. J. M. ASHLEY, 



OF OHIO, 



In the House of Regresentatives, April 11, 1862, 



ON THE BILL FOR THE RELEASE OF CERTAIN PERSONS HELD TO SERVICE OR 
LABOR IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 

3CAMMELL & CO., PRINTERS, CORNER OF SECOND & INDIANA AVENUE. 

1862. 



.HLh'Z 



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SPEECH. 



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Mr. ASHLEY said : 

Mr. Chairman : I intend to vote for this bill 
as a national duty, and not as the Representa- 
tive of a localit3\ I shall vote for it without 
apology, and without disclaimer. I have no 
excuses to offer here, or elsewhere, for doing 
an act which even-handed justice demands. 
From the first I have been earnest and persist- 
ent in pressing this question of emancipation. 
It became my pleasing duty, in obedience to 
the request of the District Committee, to meet 
and confer with the Senator who had charge of 
this subject in the other branch of the national 
Legislature, and I may say, I trust, without im- 
propriety, that the Senate could not well have 
confided it to a truer and more earnest friend of 
the measure. 

After several meetings and consultations with 
leading members of. both Houses, and citizens 
of the District, we agreed upon a bill, which 
was approved by each committee, and ordered 
to be reported in both Houses. This was the 
bill which I reported to the House on the 12th 
day of March last. I deem it due to myself, in 
this connection, to say that the bill then report- 
ed by me was not in all respects what I could 
desire ; and I need hardly add that some of the 
Senate amendments are of a character to make 
it still more objectionable. But I am a prac- 
tical man, and shall support this bill as the 
best we can get at this time. I have been 
shown a number of amendments which some of 
my friends on this side of the House desire to 
offer, and which I would prefer to the provisions 



which are proposed to be amended ; but if of- 
fered I shall vote against them, as their adop- 
tion would greatly delay, if not endanger the 
passage of the bill at this session, because their 
adoption would necessarily return the bill to 
the Senate for their concurrence. I trust, there- 
fore, that all friends of emancipation will decide 
to accept the Senate bill as it is, and vote 
against all amendments, so that the practical 
end aimed at by the earnest men of this House, 
the immediate liberation of all slaves in this 
District, shall at once be accomplished. The 
object to be attained, and not its particular mode 
of attainment, is what we ought all to have 
most at heart. 

If I must tax the loyal people of the nation 
$1,000,000 before the slaves at the national cap- 
ital can be ransomed, I will do it. I would 
make a bridge of gold over which they might 
pass to freedom, on the anniversary of the fall 
of Sumter, if it could not be more justly accom- 
plished. The people of the United States must 
be relieved from all responsibility for the exist- 
ence or longer continuance of human slavery 
at the capital of the Republic. The only ques- 
tion which I conceive I am called iipon as a 
Representative to decide is, has Congress the 
power and is it our duty to pass such a bill as 
the one before us ? 

Part of the sixteenth clause of the eighth sec- 
tion of the first article of the Constitution reads 
thus : 

" Congress shall have power to exercise exclu- 
sive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such 



district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, 
by cession of particular States and the accept- 
ance of Cdngress, become the seat of Govern- 
ment of the United States." 

I need not go into a labored argument to 
show that Congress has power to banish slavery 
from this District. It is not necessai'y to be a 
constitutional lawyer to comprehend the extent 
of the power here granted. The meaning is 
plain enough. This clause confers upon Con- 
gress all the legislative power that can be ex- 
ercised by both national and State governments 
combined. If Congress cannot abolish slavery 
in this District, no power on earth can. 

A few years ago, one of freedom's distin- 
guished orators startled the country by declar- 
ing " that Congress had no more power to make 
a slave than to make a king." If, then, there is, 
as I claim, no constitutional power in Congress 
to reduce any man or race to slavery, it certainly 
will not be claimed that Congress has the power 
to legalize such regulations as exist to-day, 
touching persons held as slaves in this District, 
by re-enacting the slave laws of Maryland, and 
thus doing by indirection what no sane man 
claims authority to do directly. I know it is 
claimed by some that if Congress has power to 
abolish, it must necessarily have power to estab- 
lish slavery. I will not insult the intelligence 
of this House by discussing such a proposition. 
If Congress could not constitutionally re-enact 
the slave laws of Maryland for this District, 
then slavery could not exist even for a single 
hour after the cession of the territory became 
complete. But whether slavery constitutionally 
exists in this District or not, that it does exist 
is a fact, and because it exists and has existed 
by the sufferance and sanction of the national 
Government, for which the entire people of the 
United States are justly responsible, it is more 
than even the imperative duty of this Congress 
to abolish at once and forever so unnatural and 
unjustifiable a wrong. And, sir, if it be neces- 
sary to employ gold to do it, let gold be employed. 
Gold — which has corrupted statesmen, perverted 
justice, and enslaved men, can never be more 
righteously used than when it contributes to 
re-establish justice and ransom slaves. 

It is claimed by the oppononts'of emancipa- 
tion that the proper and natural condition ofall 
colored rac(;s is that of slavery to the white race; 
that tlic pooi)le'of color, not only in this District, 
but throughout the country, are unlit for free- 



dom ; that they cannot take care of themselves, 
and must, of necessity, if liberated, become a 
public charge. We are asked with apparent 
horror, and an air of sincetity, " if we intend to 
let this slave population loose amoung the 
whites ;" and we are told if we do that, it will be 
destructive alike of the interests of both races ; 
that the prejudices against persons of color are 
so implacable they cannot live in peace, and a 
war of races will be the inevitaljle result of free- 
ing them among the whites — evils far more to 
be dreaded than any which can ensue from their 
continued enslavement. I have no such appre- 
hension. Experience teaches me that all such 
fears are groundless. While I deny the doc- 
trine that the normal condition of any race is 
that of slavery, or that there can be rightfully 
such a thing as property in man, under any 
Government or constitution, I will not and can- 
not believe that the restoration of any race to 
freedom will produce antagonisms that shall 
culminate in a war between those whose rela- 
tionships are changed from that of gross injus- 
tice and oppression to that of self-dependence 
and freedom. God made of one blood all the 
nations that dwell together on the face of the 
earth, and gave man "dominion over the fish 
of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over 
every living thing that creepeth upon the earth;'" 
but man over man, never. 

The distinction here made between persons 
and animals is clear and marked. It is the dis- 
tinction recognised in the jurisprudence of all 
civilized and Christian nations ; and when a 
slave master stands up here and claims that his 
title to his fellow-man rests upon the same re- 
cognised rights that give him a title to his horse, 
I see and feel the blighting effects of slavery, 
and realize the justice of the remarks which I 
submitted on this floor two ycars^go, when I 
said that — 

"I exempt, with pleasure, from any sweeping 
denunciations which I may niiiko, thousands of 
good and true men who find themselves born to 
this inheritance, aiul who.^e whole lives give as- 
surance to the world that their hearts are better 
than the system. Intru.'^t a class of men in any . 
society or Goverinncnt with absolute power over 
a servile race, and the bud men will not only use 
it and abuse it, as I shall show, but, by their 
clamorous cry of danger to the State, will per- 
petrate and give sanction to outrages that good 
and true men will be powerless to ])revent. It 
is not that southern men and slaveholders are 
worse than oilier nu'u, but because ihoy arc no 
better, that it is unsafe, if it were not in itself 



an indefensible wrong, to intrust them with ab- 
solute power over any part of the human race." 

Sir, the origin and authority for all the do- 
minion man of right possesses in this werld 
comes direct from the Father of all, and has 
been so recognised, not only by the great Eng- 
lish commentator, but by the law-givers of 
every civilized nation on earth. There is no 
right outside of His authority, much less in 
violation of it. 

The great epic poet of England writes — 

"He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl. 
Dominion absolute ; that right we hold 
By his donation ; but man over man 
He made not lord ; such title to himself 
Reserving, human left from human free." 

I ask the indulgence of the House while I 
read a few extracts from the wi-itings of the 
great men of the past, which will suffice to show 
how slavery was regarded by them. 

" Slavery is a system of the most complete in- 
justice." — Plato. 

" Slavery is a system of outrage and rob- 
bery." — Socrates. 

" By the grand laws of nature all men are born 
free, and this law is universally binding upon all 
men." 

" Eternal justice is the basis of all human 
laws." 

" Whatever is just is also the true law ; nor 
can this true law be abrogated by any written 
enactment." 

" If there be such a power in the decrees and 
commands of fools, that the nature of things is 
changed by their votes, why do they not decree 
that what is bad and pernicious shall be regarded 
as good and wholesome, or why, if the law can 
make wrong right, can it not make bad good?" 

" Those who have made pernicious and unjust 
decrees, have made anything rather than laws." — 
Cicero. 

" The law which supports slavery and opposes 
liberty must necessarily be condemned as cruel, 
for every feeling of human nature advocates lib- 
erty. Slavery is introduced bj' human wicked- 
ness; but God advocates liberty by the nature 
which he has implanted in the breast of every 
man." — Fortescue. 

" If neither captivit}' nor contract can, by the 
plain law of nature and reason, reduce the pa- 
rent to a state of slavery-, much less can they re- 
duce the offspring." 

" The primary aim of society is to protect in- 
dividuals in the enjoyment of those absolute 
rights which were vested in them by the immu- 
table laws of nature. Hence it follows that the 
first and prime end of human laws is to main- 
tain those absolute riHits of individuals." 

"If any human law shall require us to com- 
mit crime, we are bound to transgress tha* hu- 
man law, or else we must offend both the natural 
and divine." — Blackstone. 



" What the Parliament doth shall be holden 
for nauglit whenever it shall enact that which is 
contrary to the rights of nature." — Lord Coke. 

" The essence of all km is justice. What is 
not justice is not law, and what is not law ought 
not to be obeyed." — Hampden. 

"No man is by nature the property of another. 
The rights of nature must be some way forfeited 
before they can justly be taken away." — Dr. 
Johnson. 

" If you have the right to make another man a 
slave, he has right to make you a slave." — Dr. 
Price. 

" It is injustice to permit slavery to remain a 
single hour." — Pitt. 

"American slavery is the A'ilest that ever saw 
the sun; it constitutes the sum of all villanies." 
— John Weslei/. 

"Man cannot have property in man. Slavery 
is a nuisance, to be put down, not compromised 
with, and to be assailed without cessation and 
without mercy, by every blow that can be leveled 
at the monster." 

"Ireland and Irishmen should be foremost in 
seeking to effect the emancipation of marlkind." 

" The Americans alleged that they had not 
perpetrated the crime, (that of enslaving the 
blacks,) but inherited it from England. This, 
however, fact as it was, was still a paltry apol- 
ogy for America, who asserting liberty for her- 
self, still used the brand and the lash againts 
others." — Daniel 0' Cqiinell. 

" In regard to a regulation of slavery, my de- 
testation of its existence induces me to know no 
such thing as a regulation of robbery or a re- 
striction of murder. Personal freedom is a right 
of which he who deprives a fellow-creature is 
criminal in so depriving him, and he who with- 
holds is no less criminal in withholding." — 
Charles James Fox. 

" I would never have drawn my sword in the 
cause of America, if I could have conceived that 
thereby I was founding a land of slavery." — La 
Fayette. 

"I never mean, unless some particular circum- 
stances should compel me to it, to possess an- 
other slave by purchase, it being among my first 
wishes to see some plan adopted by which slav- 
ery in this countrj^ may be abolished by law." 

"But there is only one proper and effectual 
mode by which it can be accomplished, and that 
is by legislative authority, and this, as far as my 
suffrage will go, shall never be wanting." — Wash- 
ington. 

"The abolition of domestic slavery is the 
greatest object of desire in these colonies, where 
it was unhappily introduced in their infant 
state." — Jefferson. 

"It is wrong to admit into the Constitution 
the idea that there can be property in man." — 
Madison. 

"We have found that this evil has preyed up- 
on the very vitals of the Union, and has been 
prejudicial to all the States in which it has ex- 
isted." — Monroe. 

" Is it not amazing that at a time when the 



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rights of humanity are defined and understood 
with precision, in a country above all others 
fond of liberty, that in such an age and in such 
a country, -wefind men professing a religion the 
most mild, humane, gentle, and generous, adopt- 
ing such a principle, as repugnant to humanity 
as it is inconsistent with the liible, and destruc- 
tive to liberty?" — Patrklc Henry. 

" Sir, I envy neither the heart nor the head of 
that man from the North who rises here to de- 
fend slavery on principle." — John Randolph. 

" The sacred rights of mankind are not to be 
rummaged for among old parchments or musty 
records. They are written as with a sunbeam 
in the whole volume of human nature by the 
hand of Divinity itself, and can never be erased 
or obscured by mortal power." — Alexander Ham- 
ilton. 

"Little can be added to what has been 
said and written on the subject of slavery. I 
concur in the opinion that it ought not to be in- 
troduced or permitted in any of the new States, 
and that it ought to be gradually diminished 
and final)}' abolished in all of them." — John Jay. 

"It is among the evils of slavery, that it taints 
the very sources of moral principle. It estab- 
lishes false estimates of virtue and vice ; for 
what can be more false and more heartless than 
this doctrine, which makes the first and holiest 
rights of humanity depend upon the color of the 
skin?" — Joh7i Quincy Adams. 

Thus, sir, spoke some few of the great men 
of the past, and the just principles by them pro- 
claimed control and direct to-day all the civil- 
ized Governments of Europe. Shall the Amer- 
ican Government be less just than monarchical 
Governments? Shall Ave alone clin^ to slavery 
and the dead past, while all Christian nations 
are keeping step to the march of human pro- 
gress, and the demands of a higher civilization ? 
Let us hope not, and so act and vote as to secui-e 
a realization of that hope. 

I am for the liberation, iiot only of all slaves 
in this District, but wherever national jurisdic- 
tion extends and the national Constitution con- 
fers power. I am for it, because I believe it an 
act of justice to white as well as l^lack, to mas- 
ter as well as slave; and, if no other reason 
could be given, I am for it because, in the lan- 
guage of the distinguished Senator from Massa- 
■chusetts, '"then '■'^''"^ '^^^'^ ^'J '^'* (p'ace of God, 
and this u" enough." Free institutions will 
gain strength everywhere by a decree of emanci- 
pation at the national capital, while slave insti- 
tutions will everywhere be weakened. Such a 
triumph for the cause of freedom, as the passage 
of this act to-day, will be welcomed with grati- 
tude not only by the ransomed slave, but witli 
joy by the people cverywhtre iu the loyal por- 



tions of our country. In Europe it will be hailed 
by the friends of liberty and progress as the 
dawning of a new era iu the United States, and 
it will make the line of demarkatiou at home 
more distinct between the supporters and oppo- 
nents of the Government. 

I rejoice that I am about to be permitted to 
record my vote in favor of this humane and 
beneficent measure. It is a day which, in com- 
mon with millions of my countrymen, I have 
long hoped to see ; and if I never give another 
vote in this House or elsewhere, I shall not 
have lived in vain, especially if I have hastened, 
even a single hour, the adoption by Congress 
of this act of national justice and national liber- 
ation. I shall have the satifaetion of leaving 
the enduring record of an action of which my 
children cannot but be proud, and of which 
no true man in any Christian nation could be 
ashamed. 

It is said, if the slaves in this District are at 
once emancipated, that society and domestic 
regulations will be greatly deranged ; that 
peace, order, security, industry, and content- 
ment will be banished, and violence, disorder, 
robbery, idleness and crime will increase ; that 
such an act can do no possible good, while it 
would be unjust and a great hardship to both 
master and slave. Such is not my view of this 
\ act, nor such, sir, as I read it, the history of 
jemancipation in the Bi'itish or Danish West 
ilndies. Such, I am sure, will not be the result 
pn this District. Why, sir, with all the disabil- 
nties imposed upon the colored population of 
this District by congressional enactments, cor- 
poration regulations, and blind prejudices — 
■• and they are sufficient to weigh down and de- 
'Stroy the worthy and energetic, and encourage 

[the vicious and indolent — with all these disa- 
bilities, without a parallel in any nation on 
*i earth, that colored population will compare, 
ladvantageously to themselves, with the color 
ed population of any city in the free States 
They have amassed property beyond belief. 
Their church property alone, as I am inforirod 
is valued to exceed one hundred thousand dot 
'errs. They are taxed for the support of schools 
from which their children are excluded, and 
maintain separate schools of their own. ^ They 
liave societies for the support of their sick and 
fdlsaliled, and never permit one of thoir number 
to 1* buried at public expense. In thirty years 
not one of their number has been convicted of 



a capital offence. As a body, they are indus- 
trious, frugal, orderly, trustworthy, and religious. 
Instead of an increase, I venture to pre- 
dict, as the earliest result of this great measure, 
a decrease in disorder, theft, idleness, and crime; 
and as an earnest that this prediction is not 
made without some foundation, let me read to 
you the preamble and resolution adopted the 
other day at a meeting of the colored ministers 
and leading members of the several colored 
churches in this city : * 

" Whereas we have learned by the published 
pTOceediijgs of Congress that there is a proba- 
bility of the peaceful and final abolishment of 
slavery in the District of Columbia : Therefore, 

" Be it resolved, That we recommend to the 
churches and congregations we represent that 
they set apart Sunday, the 13th day of April, 
1862, in connection with the usual religious ser- 
vices, as a day of special prayer to Almight^y 
God, that if this great boon of freedom is vouch- 
safed to our people, we may receive it in a be- 
coming manner, and by our orderly behavior, 
our devotion to our Christian duties, our obedi- 
ence to the laws, we may show how worthy we 
are to enjoy it ; and that He would be pleased, in 
His own way and in His own time, to proclaim 
liberty throughout all the land, unto all the in- 
habitants thereof." 

Need I say to this House and the country 
that the men who could draft {#id adopt such a 
preamble and resolution will receive their free- 
dom with heartfelt joy, and not with riotous and 
offensive demonstrations ? Before the President 
can sign this bill, they will have assembled in 
all their churches to receive with prayer and 
thanksgiving to the Almighty this ransom at 
your hands, and tears of gratitude will obliter- 
ate from their hearts the memory of the many 
and grievous wrongs they have suffered from 
this Government and th^ir masters, and ming- 
ling with the echoing shouts on the sea and on 
the land, their voices will unite in gladness, with 
the generous hearts who everywhere will join 
the grand anthem, " Glory to God in the highest, 
peace on earth, and good will to men." 

Mr. Chairman, the bill which we are about 
to pass could not have passed but for this pro- 
slavery rebellion. The sagacity and wisdom of 
many of our statesmen, who in vain warned the 
nation that slavery and freedom could not for- 
ever live together peaceably, is being practical- 
ly demonstrated. Jefferson and Jay, Franklin 
and the Adamses, garrison and Calhoun, have 
all warned the people of the impossibility of 
long-continued peace with slavery. Speaking 



of the probable occurrence of a rupture between 
;the North and the South, some ten or twelve 
years ago, in the United States Senate, John 
C. Calhoun said : 

" The war will last between the two sections 
while there is a slave in the South. The conflict 
will never terminate. The South, I fear, will not 
see it until it is too late. They will become more 
feeble every year, while the North will grow 
stronger and stronger." 

No longer ago than in 1858, in a speech at 
Springfield, Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, now 
President of the United States, made this pro- 
phetic declaration, which is passing into history ; 

" ' A house divided against itself cannot stand.' 
I believe the Government cannot endure half 
slave and half free. I do not expect the Union 
to be diaeolved. I do not expect the house to fall, 
but I do expect that it will cease to be divided. It 
will become all one thing or all the other. Either 
the opponents of slavery will arrest the further 
spread of it, and place it where the public mind 
will rest in the belief that it is in the course of 
ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it 
forward until it shall alike become lawful in all 
the States, old as well as new. North as well as 
South." 

How truly prophetic ! To a man who com- 
prehends that slavery, and slavery alone, is the 
cause of this rebellion, the duty of the Govern- 
ment is plain. Such a' man understands that 
there can be no permanent or lasting peace un- 
til the people of the free States are no longer 
responsible for the existence and continuance 
of slavery, either at the national capital, or in 
any territory or place where Congress has con- 
stitutional power to abolish it. Hence I rejoice 
at the introduction and certain passage of this 
timely measure. Others, I doubt not, will soon 
follow, and the people. North and South, will 
gradually ari'ay themselves on the side of free- 
dom or on the side of slavery. There is, and 
there can be, but this one all-absorbing question 
in our national politics uutil it is diposed of, 
and-ihat will continue to be agitated until the 
people "rest in the belief that it is in the course 
of ultimate extinction." Until that time there 
can be but two great parties in this nation. 
The great mass of a free people, in a Govern- 
ment such as ours, must of necessity be divided 
into two, and into but two leading political par- 
ties ; and in the present, as in all coming con- 
tests on the question of slavery, we can have 
but two formidable parties struggling for the 
ascendency and control of the Government. 
The one, no matter what its name or designa- 



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tlon, will l3e tlie representative of nationality 
and freedom ; the otlier, that of privilege and 
slavery. As to other parties, representing, or 
professing to represent, the various shades of 
political opinions existing in the country, they 
cannot long continue, but must, as the Whig, 
American, and other parties have, in all the 
States, fade away before the advancing parties 
representing the cherished sentiments of a pro- 
slavei-y privileged class on the one hand, and 
the aspirations of the people for liberty on the 
other. 

Individuals, however distinguished and worthy 
in all their relations in private life, who fail to 
co-operate earnestly with either the one or the 
other of the leading parties representing justice 
and freedom, or privilege and slavery, -will con- 
tinue to disappear, as they have done, from 
public life, and new and bolder leaders will 
be chosen by the people ; for no generous and 
noble people will ever knowingly trust timid 
and timeserving leaders, knowing full well, as 
they do, that in such a contest as the party of 
privilege and slavery have forced upon this na- 
tion by their treason and rebellion there can be 
but two armies and two battle-fields and two 
banners, that of the stars and stripes, represent- 
ing liberty and union, or that of the serpent 
and pelican, representing slavery and disunion. 
There can be no question as to the position 
Tsrhich the people occupy. Let us, then, pro- 
crastinate no longer the hour which they have 
so long in vain looked for. Let the news go 
forth on the wings of the wind that the national 
capital is ransomed from slavery, and it shall 
nerve the arms of your soldiers, and strengthen 
the hold of the Government in the hearts of the 
people. 

Mr. Chairman, the struggles and hopes of 
many long and weary years are centred in this 
eventful hour. The cry of the oppressed, " how 
long, Lord ; how long ?" is to be answ^Trcd 
to-day by the American Congress. A sublime 



act of justice is now to be recorded where it will 
never be obliterated, and, so far as the action of 
the Representatives of the people can decree it, 
the fitting words of the President, spoken in his 
recent special message, '^ initiate and eman- 
cipate," shall have a life coequal with the Re- 
public. God has set his seal upon these price- 
less words, and they, with the memory of him 
who uttered them, shall live in the hearts of the 
people forever. The golden morn, so anxious- 
ly looked for by the frieyds of freedom in the 
United States, has dawned. A second national 
jubilee will henceforth be added to the calendar. 
The brave words heretofore uttered in behalf of 
humanity in this Hall, like '' bread cast upon 
the waters," are now " to return after many 
days" and find vindication of their purposes in 
a decree of freedom. The command of God to 
let the oppressed go free, is declared to be our 
duty, not only by our patriotic President, but 
by both branches of our national Congress ; and 
let us hope that from this time henceforth and 
forever, this nation is never again to be humil- 
iated and disgraced by being responsible for 
the existence and continuance of human sla- 
very. No longer within our national j urisdiction, 
where Congress has constitutional power to pro- 
hibit it, shall sla«rery be tolerated. The nation 
Is to-day entei'Ing upon a policy which cannot 
be reversed; and justice Is vindicated, human- 
ity recognised, and God obeyed. In the beau- 
tiful words of Mrs. Howe : 

" He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall 

never call retreat ; 
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His 

judgment scat : 
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant 

my feet 1 

Our God is marching on. 
In the beauty of the IfUies, Christ was born 

across the sea, 
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you 

and me ; 
As He died to make men holv, let us die to make 

men free, 

While God is marching on." 



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